We have teachers on strike – and this weekend they are demonstrating – but there is another group (and you will understand me if I say it is quieter) that is also doing so: librarians. In principle, the strike was only in Barcelona, but it has spread throughout Catalonia. They denounce the lack of labor recognition and the consequences of the new agreement.
The lack of recognition does not even need to be mentioned. You tell a student if they would like to study library science and they look at you as if you had suggested they go break rocks in Siberia. Adults look at librarians as a kind of idlers who spend their day reading.
We could talk about working conditions. They work 11 hours a day and, above all, they don't do their job. Some people go to the library to get books. But some people go to read magazines there. Or newspapers. And now that many are digital, you don't need to go get them. Librarians, therefore, are today wifi managers. Even that recent past is behind us when boys and girls went there to use computers with the internet and a time limit was set so that everyone could enjoy it. Now boys and girls don't even need to enter the library to have internet. They sit on the doorstep and use the network to watch reels. I don't think it's bad, for the record. I come from a time when if someone asked you – sincerely – “How are you?”, you could answer with all sorts of linguistic nuances. Today, “How are you?” can be answered with an emoji. A smile, a poop, an angry face.
It may be that the job of a librarian will be so testimonial in the future that a robot can do it. That there will be no need to store paper books. Just as there is no need to store records now. I am writing these lines from the Gabriel García Márquez Library in Barcelona, where I went to record a podcast for the Week of Catalan Literature. I sat in one of the armchairs, so comfortable, and looked around. I thought, seeing the posters on the walls calling for a strike, that we must give all our support to the librarians of Catalonia.
